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The Helldivers 2 devs have a pretty simple process for designing new Stratagems: they just make a new one whenever they get bored of the old selection. That's perhaps oversimplifying the process a bit, but Arrowhead Studios CEO and creative director Johan Pilestedt says it's all about having a fun idea and iterating on it until it makes sense in the game.

Helldivers 2 has exploded onto the gaming scene in a massive way. This co-operative third-person shooter packed with danger, action, humor, and surprises has already become one of this year’s most talked-about games. What some people may be less familiar with though is its progenitor. The original Helldivers, which debuted in 2015 (and is still active) is a co-op, multiplayer overhead twin-stick shooter packed with action, intensity, and plenty of challenging situations that a player might find themselves in.

Production artwork for the Super Mario Bros. Movie shows a number Mushroom Kingdom characters who didn't make it into the final film — including Princess Daisy, Toadette, Eurogamer favourite Birdo, and the loyal Toadsworth.

Bungie’s latest Destiny 2 pop culture crossover is nearly here. But this time it isn’t skins or armor sets from another video game, it’s items from an upcoming movie — Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, to be precise.

The year kicked off with a bang, with the eagerly anticipated Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the ninth mainline entry in developer RGG Studios' long-running crime melodrama, released in January. We loved it, and it was so crammed full of content that it always felt like there was something new to do or see. The game's chief producer, Hiroyuki Sakamoto, agrees, reflecting on the game now that things have settled down a little.

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Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama has passed away. On Thursday, March 7, a statement published on the official Dragon Ball website announced that Toriyama had passed on March 1 due to an acute subdural hematoma. He was 68 years old.

While Lego has plenty of products featuring the various iterations of Batman, its latest set based onBatman: The Animated Series might be their best yet. The massive 4,210-piece set will set you back $299.99 when it becomes widely available on April 4. However, members of the free-to-join Lego Insiders program will be able to purchase the set early, starting April 1.

In the world of toys and collectibles, whether a video game, movie, or TV series has truly made it can be determined by how many Lego sets and Funko Pops it has. The more time passes, the more Squishmallows can be thrown into that melting pot along with them. Pokemon has Squishmallows, Marvel has Squishmallows, and to mark Squishmallows Day 2024, Jazwares has announced Stranger Things will be joining its Squishmallows family too.

The world has been gripped by Dune after Part 2 hit cinemas last week, chalking up almost $100 million during its opening weekend. If you have already seen Dune: Part 2, and you're anything like me, you'd have spent the last few days chuckling at memes about giant worms and poking fun at Stilgar's obsession with Paul Atreides being Lisan al Gaib. Now you can take those memes a step further by owning both those characters, and four more from Dune: Part 2, in Funko Pop! form.

El Paso, Elsewhere developer Strange Scaffold has announced a five-game deal with publisher Frosty Pop. As part of the announcement, they’ve revealed a trailer for their next game, Life Eater, which is out on April 16, 2024.

PowerWash Simulator is a chill-out game that captures the simple joy of scrubbing dirt and grime from the side of a house, statue, or playground. But what if you’re bored by the humble scene of a garage door or muddy truck? What if you yearn to gain the same satisfaction as a miniature painter gets from airbrushing an elaborate figurine? PowerWash Simulator occasionally does pop culture crossovers to introduce a little bit of variety — like SpongeBob SquarePantsand Final Fantasy 7 Remake— but none of them are as grim and dark as the Warhammer 40,000 pack.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

A brand new is here and with it comes some great new word groupings, including one we still aren't one-hundred percent sure we understand. The best thing about Connection though is that you don't need to figure out all four categories, you really only need three and it's a win with the leftover words.

MultiVersus has popped back up in the "Free Games" section of the Epic Games Store, which supports the rumours and fan theories that it could be re-revealed at some point this month.

MultiVersus fans are hopeful that we'll finally see the game re-revealed this month, and there's a surprising amount of evidence supporting that idea.

There’s a lot to take in during the opening hours of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Not only do you have an entire cast of characters to play as right away, but a fast hub world to explore. One thing you’ll get very familiar with right away is collecting resources for crafting items. These things are littered all over the world, begging to be collected. However, there are rare parts out there, such as the Quetzalcoatl Talon, that you can only get from one specific source. If you’re trying to finish the “Where the Wind Blows” side quest specifically, you’ll need this fiend’s claw to complete it, so let’s hunt it down.

Like Dune before it, Dune: Part Two is a feast for the eyes. But even in a movie full of tantalizing visuals, there’s one scene that stands apart: the starkly glowing Harkonnen arena.

Do you love playing Kingdom Rush? Well, then you’ll be happy to know that Ironhide Game Studio is busy making the next sequel of the series. They’re bringing out Kingdom Rush 5: Alliance, which is the fifth instalment in their much-loved tower defense series. It’s slated for release on Android, iOS and PC later this year.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is out now, and that means players are naturally bullying a returning nerd called Chadley, just like they did four years ago in Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Taking the reigns from Palworld, Helldivers 2 has become the latest surprise hit of 2024. As hundreds of thousands of people have flocked to play Arrowhead's latest game, the studio has been doing all it can to cope with the unexpected influx of players. Now the server capacity has been upped and wait times reduced, even more people might be convinced to join the battle to save Super Earth. If that sounds a lot like what you're planning to do this weekend, make sure you don't fall for the Helldivers scams cropping up on Steam.

When pop culture fandoms heat up, collectors begin to come out of the woodwork. Not speculators, mind you, like the pie-eyed, self-styled investor class that has glommed onto trading card games like Magic: The Gathering and Disney Lorcana. No, I’m talking about real collectors in search of rare artifacts, often from early on in the history of a given fandom.

PS5 Slim deals have been hard to come by so far, but in the last week, we've seen that $499 MSRP start to waver a little. The full cost of the console was slashed by multiple retailers a few days ago, dropping down to $449.99 for a full $50 off. Today, though, Best Buy has done one better. 

A series of Helldivers 2 gameplay leaks have revealed a look at the upcoming mech vehicle type.

One of the many elements players can create in is: Epic Games’ long-running and incredibly popular battle royale. Video games are among the many things players can make in the viral browser game, alongside popular movies, TV shows, and more. Like other elements, the element can be used to craft even more new elements, many of which reference Epic’s battle royale.

The Halo TV series’ previous episode left off with Reach under siege, and with Master Chief and the rest of the Spartans doing their best to protect what’s left of the planet. But based on Polygon’s exclusive new clip from episode 5, Chief and his team aren’t out of hot water yet.

Managing your own interstellar civilization in Stellaris is as deep as it is challenging. No two plays are the same, and there are dozens of ways you can eventually achieve victory — but even more ways to see your empire fall. Being a mix of 4X and strategy game mechanics, this isn’t a game for the faint of heart. Once you begin, every choice has weight and consequences. But what if you could make things a little easier on yourself? The game isn’t going to give you any slack, and there’s no shame in tweaking the experience to your liking. Here are all the cheats and console commands to help you rule the galaxy.

Elden Ring's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has confirmed in an interview that George R.R. Martin didn't write anything new for Shadow of the Erdtree, but that the world and story were inspired and based around what he penned for the main game.

A good part of the Internet has already sung high praise for the OG Tomb Raider trilogy remaster’s loving determination to rejuvenate the classic. I’m glad it has. Being alone in finding it quite a marvel would leave me feeling pretty sad and possibly stupid.

is offering new rewards in February 2024 through active codes you can redeem for extra Gems, the game's main currency. New summons and extra gear are bought through Gems, so you'll want to earn as many as possible. There are plenty of codes you can redeem for bountiful resources used to improve your characters for the challenging battles ahead.

Even though the number of Pokemon created has now reached four figures, fewer than 50 of them have had the honor of being turned into Funko Pops. Grookey and Aipom are among some of the latest Pokemon to get the Funko Pop! treatment. Clearly those Pops have been pretty popular as Funko has already revealed Aipom and Grookey are getting flocked versions, and pre-orders for the Grass-type starter's new figure are already live.

Although several older figures were recently restocked, what may well be the final new amiibo for Nintendo Switch have now been released. Sora's figure last week, and the Noah and Mio two-pack a few weeks before that. Naturally, the three figures have been pretty hard to come by since pre-orders went live, but now they've all been released, the trio has been popping in and out of stock on Amazon.

Iconic pop sensation Lady Gaga has announced that she'll be coming to Fortnite Festival. 

Marvel Comics is billing this summer's Avengers and pals vs. vampires event Blood Hunt as the "bloodiest" in the publisher's history, even releasing a second poly-bagged version of the main limited series with more blood and gore. But it may also be one of the largest Marvel events in quite some time, with the publisher teasing more than 20 Blood Hunt tie-ins across limited series, one-shots, and included ongoing series, according to a teaser image that has slowly been filled in over the course of Marvel's announcements.

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The browser-based game has recently gone viral, challenging players to combine words to produce thousands upon thousands of new word-crafting elements. Some elements reference massive pop culture franchises, including one of the most popular franchises of all:. Players can combine elements to create the element and use it to create new elements referencing George Lucas’ series of epic sci-fi films.

It looks like the rumors from last year of a “Complete Edition” of Shin Megami Tensei V might have been accurate after all. According to Gematsu, an official rating popped up from the Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea for Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. The description for the rating indicated it was a complete edition of Shin Megami Tensei V with improvements and additional content. The rating was later removed.

After the blockbuster sequel was pushed out of 2023 and into this year, Dune 2's release is almost here. Hitting cinemas on March 1, you likely don't need me to tell you that the hype for the next chapter in Denis Villeneuve's retelling of the iconic story is finally here. Less than two weeks more to wait, and whether you want to celebrate in more ways than one, or 11 more days is still too long to wait, there's a range of Dune 2 Funko Pops available now.

Mini PC manufacturer, AOOSTAR, has unveiled its brand new GEM10 Mini PC which offers AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS APUs with OCULINK in a compact shape.

The PlayStation Portal has been notoriously hard to find since before it had even launched in November of last year. Pre-orders sold out almost immediately, and then stock has been snatched up really fast everywhere the Portal has popped up since. Best Buy had the PS5 handheld companion device back in stock earlier this week, but it disappeared almost immediately. PlayStation now has the Portal back in stock at source, and for the first time, it hasn't sold out within minutes.

X-Men '97 news has kept people on the edge of their seats for years. The latest surprise is a first look at the newly revealed 8-bit Funko Pops for the rumored video game episode.

We might not know what the future of Pokemon video games looks like right now, but its Funko Pop! division hit the ground running in 2024. Pokemon and Funko kicked off the year by teasing six new figures, heavily implying the six will be pre-existing Pops given pearlescent makeovers. That implication was confirmed via the official reveal of a shiny new Lucario Pop!, and now we may know which Pokemon will be the second of the six.

The highly anticipated crime drama series, "Poacher," produced by Alia Bhatt, is scheduled to premiere on February 23, 2024. As an Amazon Prime Video original, the series delves into the pressing issue of poaching and the illegal killing of animals.

The Wand Company revealed at the end of January that it would be releasing miniature versions of its luxury Poke Ball replica collection. Showing off five of the Poke Ball types that will be getting shrunk down to look the way they do when clipped to a trainer's belt, what the initial reveal didn't divulge is how much the replicas will cost. Now the first of the five designs is available to buy on Amazon, the price of the mini Poke Balls has been confirmed.

Marvel's Collector Corps is a subscription service that has been running for almost a decade. Releasing a handful every year, each box has a theme and includes items made by Funko and Loungefly, but you don't know what's inside the box until it arrives. Unless you don't have a subscription, you wait until after the latest boxes have been sent out, and then you decide if the items inside are worth buying.

Two things are near-universally liked: collecting things and Disney characters. That was the idea behind Disney Infinity, which burst onto the scene in 2013, allowing fans to mix both passions into one – and giving the House of Mouse yet another money-printing machine. The toys-to-life game lets you place physical character figures from Disney and Pixar worlds onto a special platform, scanning them into the game where you could play as Elsa and Wreck-It Ralph side-by-side. It was every kid’s dream come true – and also every Disney adult, of course.

After more than 1,000 attempts, an Elden Ring streamer has beaten the game without taking a single hit and using a randomizer mod to change every enemy.

Update: Beyoncé has revealed what the teaser was for on her Instagram: the long-awaited Renaissance Act 2 now has a release date, complete with the drop of two new songs, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.”

A Tekken 8 dataminer has uncovered several clues that hint at some of the DLC characters who might be making up the game's first season pass alongside Eddy Gordo.

There’s nothing on television quite like the moment in a thriller when a character finally breaks and does something even they didn’t know they were capable of. For True Detective: Night Country, that moment arrives late in episode 5, and it hits just about every character at the exact same time.

Season 9 of Overwatch 2 kicks off next week, with some big changes to the game’s competitive mode, a new battle pass, and a cosmic horror theme for hero skins. But Blizzard Entertainment’s sneak peek at season 9, named Champions, also hints at something surprising: a crossover with beloved anime series Cowboy Bebop.

Take-Two Interactive has an interesting response to gamers upset with what the company does with the in-game currency they buy. In an ongoing dispute over whether money is essentially stolen when a game’s servers shut down, Take-Two characterized in-game virtual currency as “fictions created by game publishers.”

Loading into Foamstars, you probably know what to expect in terms of progression. Being a multiplayer-only game, you can count on live-service elements being in play; however, every game handles them differently. Yes, we do have both a free and paid battle pass here with tons of cosmetics, but what about more impactful things like characters? At launch, your roster will only have eight options, but two are locked: Mel T and The Baristador. Considering how each character plays differently, getting the entire range of options will help you decide which one you want to focus on. These two have different requirements to unlock, and one of them may not be to your liking.

There are eight Pokemon Squishmallows, most of which are notoriously hard to find even though the first wave was released more than a year ago. All four Squishmallows included in that first wave are out of stock at the Pokemon Center right now, although the newer Clefairy and Teddiursa options are available if you've been waiting for them. A good sign for whenever more Pokemon are given the Squishmallow treatment, and the next two creatures joining the collection may have been revealed.

I (rightly) started my Yakuza playthrough with 0, jumping between Goro Majima and Kazuma Kiryu’s beginnings in the world of a cutthroat criminal empire back in the ‘80s. I wouldn’t change a thing, since it sets up Kiwami perfectly and made me care about all of the short-lived characters that kickstarted the first game and series as a whole, but I was disappointed that Majima never returned as a fully-fledged protagonist. He was as much the heart of 0 as Kiryu, and was shown to be as rich and in-depth a character as the face of Yakuza himself.

This initial report on The Greatest Night in Popcomes from our team following the premieres at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. We’ll update this piece when there’s more information about the movie’s release.

In Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, you'll meet a young girl called Fariba who sells you hints and maps whenever you run into her across your adventure through Mount Qaf.

After last week’s vote on this year’s Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost armor designs, Bungie has already published the winning sets. By popular vote, we’ve got Evil Wizard Hunters and Warlocks, and Good Wizard Titans, but the fashion community is not at all thrilled with the results.

Bandai Namco has issued an update this morning, addressing matchmaking errors and crashes that popped up on launch night for Tekken 8.

Disney Lorcana is finally introducing one of its most highly requested movies to the game, with Into The Inklands adding cards based on Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Trophy list has appeared on the PlayStation Network, three years after the remake was originally meant to release.

Just like all the previous games, possibly more so, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is crammed with interesting and unique minigames, some of which are clearly satirical takes on already existing mechanics and titles. For example, one such minigame will see protagonist Ichiban Kasuga pick up a camera and snap pictures of the local perverts in a minigame called Sicko Snap, something that will sound very familiar if you've ever played either of the two Pokemon Snap games.

The Steam Deck is packed with excellent features, has solid performance, and has decent battery life. But as our review noted, it does still need some work. Fortunately, Valve has been regularly posting important software updates to fix issues and add new features that gamers have wanted, and it’s slowly becoming a more stable, versatile device for it.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a labyritnhine Metroidvania with a sprawling map crammed with upgrades like Soma Petals that expand your health bar, Damascus Ingots, those pesky little silver rectangles that are used to give your attacks more power, and many other collectibles that make your life easier as you explore the mysterious ancient kingdom filled with timey-wimey mystery.

A trophy list for the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake has popped up online for the second time in a few years, which has fans hoping that an announcement for the game is happening soon.

Nintendo's amiibo run on Switch appears to be coming to an end as it potentially inches closer to the announcement of its next console. The release of Sora's figure, which may well be the final amiibo on Switch, is set for February 16, and the penultimate amiibo released was a Noah and Mio two-pack which some of you will have by now. Pre-orders of the two-pack were hard to find, but now release day has been and gone, stock of the Xenoblade pairing has been popping up here and there.

Another Code: Recollection is the new Switch remake of the Nintendo-published DS and Wii cult-classic story-driven adventure games Another Code: Two Memories (known as Trace Memory in North America) and Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories. Beyond the expected visual updates, Another Code: Recollection also completely remixes the games’ puzzles, meaning even those familiar with the originals will find themselves on new ground.

Pizza Hero has finally made its way to Android, after dropping on iOS more than five months ago. Developed by Astro Hound Studios, it’s a quirky shoot ’em-up roguelite that’s free to play. But wait, what’s that angle with the pizza? Keep reading to find out!

Gale is one of Baldur's Gate 3's more dangerous characters. He's a lovely guy, but if he pops his clogs in the middle of a crowded city, and you leave his body to fester, there will be nothing left but a crater after a few days thanks to the destructive force of the Netherese Orb in his body. Gale himself says he'll go somewhere with no one around and wait for his death if you don't help him, but what if you poofed him to another plane of existence?

The Marvel slate is looking a little barren in 2024 when compared to other years as of late, and that's probably a good thing. Between TV shows on Disney Plus and MCU blockbusters not making as much as they used to, a year in which there isn't as much Marvel content may well make more casual fans hungry for what's still to come. That said, there will still be some new Marvel stuff in 2024, and two of its biggest upcoming projects already have their own Funko Pops.

Another Code: Recollection is the new Switch remake of the Nintendo-published DS and Wii cult-classic story-driven adventure games Another Code: Two Memories (known as Trace Memory in North America) and Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories. Beyond the expected visual updates, Another Code: Recollection also completely remixes the games’ puzzles, meaning even those familiar with the originals will find themselves on new ground.

Palworld, the new survival game that's been dubbed "Pokemon with guns," is off to a massive start since officially launching this morning, and players have already been making allllll kinds of discoveries. One of them, however, is, well... it's a little dark.

In case you missed it, two new amiibo have a street date of today, January 19, 2024. I know, these things pop up unexpectedly! Those two additions are Noah and Mio, two of the primary protagonists from 2022’s Xenoblade Chronicles 3.